Club seeks angel investors in Thai start-ups
SHIFT Ventures has set up a “Founderhood” club to invite more than 35 angel investors to put more than Bt1 billion into start-ups in Thailand.
Worawisut Pinyoyang, managing partner of Shift Ventures, said the firm provided research reports and other information to help investors decide whether to back Thai start-ups. To that end, it has set up two clubs, 1000x and Founderhood, for both investors and start-ups.
The 1000x club provides research and reports to investors looking for high-potential start-ups. The 1000x club now has more than 35 members. Each investor in the club commits at least US$1 million (Bt35 million) in funding for start-ups. The total amount earmarked so far is more than Bt1 billion.
Through the Founderhood club, the firm provides business consulting, marketing channels, training and important knowledge such as business networking and product development to start-ups so they can create high-performance products and services. There are now more than 10 start-ups in its portfolio in various areas such as financial and retail tech.
“I think that Thailand still has space to develop start-ups,” Worawisut said. “Meanwhile, there are a lot more investors who want to invest in start-ups. The firm therefore will be a facilitator for both start-ups and investors.”
He said the firm would earn revenue from start-ups in the form of business-consulting fees but did not disclose how much it charges.
The firm also aims to help quality start-ups scale up their businesses in order to compete in international markets and become sustainable.
Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, chief executive of Asia Plus Group, which is an angel investor, said Shift Ventures would be a mechanism to create opportunities for start-ups. Meanwhile, investors will also be able to help start-ups to access knowledge, consulting and business networks.
Moreover, investors will able to transfer knowledge to start-ups to shorten the time it takes them to build their businesses.
